What our generation of somewhat individualistic and anti-institutional Christians misses is that the assembled church operates with a different set of authorizations, warrants, or licenses than the individual Christian does. The gathered local church is authorized in Matthew 16, 18, and 28 by Christ’s keys of the kingdom to make an international

worship God the way he wants to be worshiped.”

In contrast, it is an emphasis on action, and particularly God’s action in worship, that Wolterstorff distills as the “genius” of Reformed and Protestant worship. “The liturgy as the Reformers understood and practiced it consists of God acting and us responding through the work of the Spirit.”